Basingstoke

Basingstoke is the largest town in Hampshire, England. Known as Basingestoches ("Basa's tribe's western settlement") to the Anglo-Saxons, it was the site of a Roman road and the 871 Battle of Basing, during which King Aethelred of Wessex was defeated by the Danish Vikings; it was also the site of a battle between King Edward the Elder and Aethelwold Aetheling. It was a weekly market site at the start of Norman rule, and, since 1214, it has had a regular Wednesday market. The great fires of 1601 and 1656 heavily damaged the city, but it grew in size due to the rise of the clothmaking industry. In 1839, the London railroad arrived in Basingstoke, leading to the town's growth. It suffered very little bomb damage during The Blitz of World War II, and it rapidly developed in the late 1960s as an "expanded town". The shopping center was built from the 1970s to 1980s, and it soon surpassed the size of a market town. In 2010, Basingstoke had a population of 113,776 people.